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AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
A Consumer Is Born
By J’AMY PACHECO
A friend of mine recently used a Latin phrase to close out a column he’d written. Unfortunately, he wrote “Caveat Emptor” when what he intended to say was “Carpe Diem.”
At first glance, “Let the buyer beware” and “Seize the day” seem to have little in common, other than the fact that they both start with the letter “c” and are phrases from a dead language. Observing my second-grade daughter’s recent reaction to a gift, however, suggested to me that the two phrases might actually have some relevance to one another.
Christmas morning, Santa delivered a Disneyland playset. It consists of a little pink castle with a revolving magnetic dance floor; some tiny plastic children, two parade floats on which Cinderella and Mickey Mouse ride and a couple plastic snack carts. At the turn of a key, the set plays music and fake fireworks and Tinker Bell pop up from behind the castle.
My daughter—a Disneyland addict who fully expected the playset to live up to its “Bring the Magic Home” slogan—only recently got around to opening it. To say she was disappointed would be an understatement in extremis.
Her disappointment apparently stemmed from Cinderella’s lack of performance. Having viewed television commercials hawking the toy, she believed Cinderella and her foofy skirt could twirl. This Cinderella, however, did nothing on her float, and fell down each time she was placed on the dance floor.
My daughter was moved to pen a letter of complaint, which she addressed to “The Boss of Hasbro.” In short, it started with “I am a VERY angry seven-year-old-girl” and ended with, “You shouldn’t fool kids and make them think a toy does things that it doesn’t do because you just make them sad.”
In defense of Hasbro, I will say that eventually I was able to get Cinderella to twirl a little. Her skirt, naturally, goes where her body goes, so technically, it twirls as well. My little consumer advocate decided to throw out her letter—hasn’t touched the playset since.
Frankly, I was pleased to see her get fired up enough to act. Faced with displeasing results as a consumer, I often vow to write letters of complaint, but rarely get around to it.
Late last year, I became fed up enough with the repeated crummy customer service at a local craft store that I sent a letter to the chain’s headquarters. I received a letter from a customer-relations person there who apologized for the lousy service.
Ironically, this person wrote that without my telephone number, the local store manager wouldn’t be able call me. Having experienced the store’s “personal” touch, I was baffled as to why anybody would think I’d want a call from someone there. And that was the end of that.
Christmas morning, I spent no less than 45 minutes trying to debox a fashion doll mall. The effort required the use of scissors strong enough to remove a finger, and involved the clipping of enough plastic and wire that I checked to see that my tetanus shots were up to date.
When I was finished, I piled the bazillion pieces of wire and sharp plastic that were left into a shoebox, and vowed to mail it to the president of Mattel with a letter of complaint. Regrettably, the whole thing was tossed out in a post-holiday frenzy of cleaning. Without the evidence, I felt my complaint wouldn’t be as effective, and I never did write that letter.
As consumers, we’ve endured many disappointments. Toys that don’t perform as expected, dolls whose necks break and whose heads go rolling when they’re dropped, gadgets that just don’t live up to the hype surrounding their marketing.
Sometimes, we get satisfaction. When we opened a spiffy red Barbie car and discovered it came with two same-side rear view mirrors, I called Mattel. They remedied the problem by sending a whole new car. Wow!
(My daughter recently received Barbie’s cruise ship. During assembly, we discovered it contained two same-side ship rails, so part of the deck is now unprotected. The ship is so huge I’m afraid to call Mattel – we don’t have space to berth another. I’m just hopeful Barbie doesn’t fall off and lose her head. Again.)
While I’m sorry my daughter was disappointed with her new toy, I’m pleased that she’s learned to voice complaint when it’s warranted. The experience led me to coin a dead-language phrase of my own: “Carpe emptor diem!” Ignorantly translated, it means “Let the buyer seize the day!”
I’m not sure I got that exactly right, but if you’re unhappy about it, you know what to do!
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company